


Can't sleep for all the white noise (The signal to noise remix)

by counteragent



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: kamikazeremix, Gen, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 11:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counteragent/pseuds/counteragent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's OK if you don't want to sleep," John said. "Fact is, I could use the company."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't sleep for all the white noise (The signal to noise remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nwhepcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwhepcat/gifts).
  * Inspired by [White Noise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/173230) by [nwhepcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwhepcat/pseuds/nwhepcat). 



_ 1983 _

The Impala’s wheels threw off water as she charged down the freeway. She was steady and sure in the late November rain, her black body hurtling forward through the storm. John avoided looking in the rearview mirror for the fourth time in 30 seconds. Sam and Dean were there, he didn’t have to look. They wouldn’t snap out of existence if John’s eyes were not on them for half a second.

Sam was fitful, belted into his infant car seat for just a little too long (according to his six month-old judgment, John supposed) and cranky about it. Kid was probably sitting on a cushion of pee. Dean was looking at Sam worriedly but wasn’t able to help much from his side of the seat. John wanted to ask Dean to sing Sam a song, but he sensed it was pointless. Dean had been quiet since the fire, all big eyes, unsmiling mouth and drawn brow. He looked unreal, like Father Time caught in transition—an old man in a tiny body. 

John sighed and began an insipid lullaby, one Mary wouldn’t have sung in a million years. But it was all he could think of beyond bawdy Marine chants and Christmas carols, both of which he’d never sing again, for different reasons. No way in hell was he going to touch The Beatles.

John’s voice was rich and low, with a newly acquired rasp. Maybe from the smoke, maybe from the whiskey that tended to accompany him to bed most nights.  The Impala’s wipers kept time with a gentle _shush-shush, shush-shush_. 

After a while Sam stopped waving and kicking and drifted off to sleep with a scowl as if to remind John that _this isn’t finished_. John allowed himself a few lingering glances. He hoped the song brought comfort to Dean too. There’d be little enough comfort on the road. It was better than sitting around waiting for what got Mary to come for them, too, but it wasn’t going to be simple. As if sensing John’s thoughts, Dean met his eyes in the rearview mirror.

ldquo;It’s OK if you don’t want to sleep,” John said. Fact is, I could use the company.” Dean’s expression lightened a tad. It was a big improvement.

The world outside was nothing but gray rain. The Impala drove on, solid as a time capsule and solemn as a hearse.

_ ** 2006 _

“Open up!” Dean banged on the door of the tidy suburban house. Sam shot him a _dude, manners_ look but Dean paid him zero attention. Being back in Kansas again was irritating the crap out of Dean, and Dean was paying it forward to Sam like an overgrown four year old. 

Not that Sam was exactly thrilled to be here. He didn’t remember Lawrence like Dean did, but you didn’t have to be a psychic to read the pain in Dad and Dean’s faces every time their life here came up. And Sam should know, since he apparently was a psychic now or whatever. Psychic like the lady they’d come here to see, if the hand-painted sign in the window was to be believed. 

Once they’d figured out that _Missouri_ in Dad’s journal wasn’t a state but a person, Dean had insisted they check her out. Sam needed help, and that was reason enough for Dean to swallow the bitter pill of _fucking_ _Kansas_ and _fortune-telling freak_ in one go. 

Sam’s visions had been getting more and more vivid, but mixed in with the “civilian in peril” ones that invariably turned into cases were other, subtler ones. Two girls weeping in their mother’s arms, all three with honey-blonde hair and the psychic stench of deep sorrow. The woman’s face, desperate, as she spoke with police, neighbors, anyone, her hands clutching what Sam thought was the photo of child. 

Although they lacked the usual horror-show drama, these visions never failed to leave Sam with a clenching pain in his heart to match the drumming in his head. The feelings didn’t go away between visions, either, just faded to a kind of emotional white noise, prickly and depressing. Add that to the sapping sorrow of Jess dead and gone, and well. Sam had had about enough of this shit, and so had Dean.

“I said, open u--!” 

“Dean Winchester! I highly suspect your daddy taught you better manners than that. But if he didn’t, I ain’t afraid to try my hand at it.”

Dean stepped back like he’d been electrocuted. Missouri turned out to be a middle-aged black woman in a brightly colored floral top. She paid his reaction little heed, just turned on her heel and disappeared back into the house.

After a beat, her voiced floated out. “You boys gonna come in or not? I don’t see clients on the porch, and I have a feeling we’re going to need some tea.”

Sam looked at Dean, who had gone from pissed-off to pissed-yourself-shocked. He was trying to compose himself, mouth opening and snapping shut.

“Dean? Dean, we don’t have to do this, man. I know psychics aren’t your thing.” Something wasn’t adding up, but Sam gave him the only out that he could think of.

Dean swung his eyes over the Sam like he was just realizing he was there. Sam’s worry seemed to snap Dean back to _Dean_ , and he slapped Sam on the back.

“What? Are you afraid she’ll look inside your gigantic head and see all your lame porn?”

“I think you’re confusing me with you again.”

Together, they stepped inside the house.

**

_ 1984 _

John blinked awake in the gray pre-dawn gloom that filled the motel room. Last night’s liquid sleep-aid—cheap bourbon in a cheaper motel glass—fuzzed into focus. The glass was nearly empty. It was leaving rings on the nightstand where some had slopped over the side. John turned his head, annoyed he was conscious when he’d taken such pains not to be.

Dean was standing silently by his bed. John sat up quickly, his blood thudding in his ears. 

“Dean! Jesus.” John gentled his tone at the way Dean jumped back from the bed. “Sorry buddy, I didn’t expect to see you there.

ldquo;Can’t sleep, little man?” John mumbled, drawing his hand across his face. His eyelids felt puffy and unresponsive, like maybe they were someone else’s. 

Dean drew his lower lip beneath his top teeth in that way that Mary sometimes did when she was hesitating to say something. Not that she hesitated all too often. Dean jutted his chin over to Sammy’s car seat—this wasn’t the kind of place that offered complimentary cribs to its patrons—and then John heard it. Sammy was whimpering softly. John’s arm hair stood on end. Sammy was usually a loud baby; if he needed something, he’d let you know about it, and then let you know some more.

John wrenched back the covers and scooped up the seat, placing it on the bed. Sammy’s eyes opened, but they were unfocused, more like a newborn’s than an eight month old. John unbuckled the restraints and picked him up, bringing his lips to Sam’s forehead. He was hot.

“OK, OK, it’s OK, Sammy,” John said, his lips and cheek brushing the soft baby fuzz of Sam’s hair. Sam was limp and unresisting in his arms, a far cry from his usual constant squirming. Sam was like a heater on his shoulder, and suddenly the room seemed too hot, fueled by a blaze of panic John struggled to contain. It’s just a fever, not an omen. It’s a cold. Babies got colds, didn’t they? John broke out in a sweat. The motel heater panted heavily in the corner, filling the room with drafts of hot, dry breath. Maybe Sam wasn’t sick, maybe it was just this goddamn room. It was definitely too warm in here, why hadn’t John noticed? It was a million degrees. Sam was burning up. They were both burning up…

_BAM!_ John whipped around, clutching Sammy to his chest. Dean hovered over the first aid kit, which lay sprung open on the ground where it had fallen. 

“Dean!” John said, a reprimand born of surprise. Alarm and guilt warred on Dean’s face, his eyes shifting between the pile of supplies and John.

John took a breath, and the room snapped back to normal motel-room-in-January temperatures. “Hey, Dean-o, sorry for shouting. That was a good idea, buddy.” John placed Sammy carefully on the motel bedspread. Sam mewled softly and closed his eyes.  John waited to see the rise and fall of his tiny ribs before turning back to Dean.

“Let’s see what we’ve got.” John knelt by the pile and shoveled it all back in the case while Dean fidgeted anxiously. He transferred the contents to the bed. It was just your basic car kit, nothing fancy. John brought it in every night. A pathetic habit, really: as if band-aids and iodine tablets would protect them.  

John began to replace the items one by one, using the task to calm and focus himself. “See these here? These are gauze patches and butterfly bandages.  Those are for really big boo boos—we probably won’t ever need them.” True enough: if the demon found them they wouldn’t need any bandages at all. Dean looked on solemnly, nodding.

“This is stuff for bug bites, like for itches. This is iodine, for cleaning up cuts before you put band-aids—these here, you know band-aids, right?—on ‘em.

“And these are the medicines. Right here is Tylenol, for headaches and fevers. This is what we’re gonna give baby Sam, ‘K?” 

Half the 2-and-up dose crushed into a few sips of formula worked like a charm, and an hour later Sammy was sleeping whimper-free. John and Dean were each sprawled out on a bed. Dean mirrored John’s spread-eagle pose, all little boy limbs and crumpled clothing.

John turned his head to Dean. “Thanks for staying awake with me, Dean. You and me, we’re gonna take care of him.” 

Dean actually smiled, and John smiled back.

**

_ 2006 _

Missouri was already taking the kettle off the stove when Sam and Dean entered the kitchen. She must have started it before they knocked. The room was warm and friendly, which did nothing to dispel the dread Sam could feel curdling in his gut.

“Well, let me get a look at you,” Missouri put her hands on wide hips, her expression much warmer now that Dean wasn’t staging an invasion. “Goodness, you both grew up handsome. Sam, honey, I’m so sorry about your girlfriend. And Dean--Dean, you and I are going to need some time together today.”

Sam saw Dean’s posture stiffen in his peripheral vision. When Dean didn’t answer, Sam covered.

“Actually, ma’am. We’re here about, well, me. I’ve been seeing visions of these, uh, these sad women, I guess—“ Sam’s voice extinguished on huff. “Bizarre” pretty much summed up Winchester existence but _sad ladies are making me sad_ sounded weird even to his own ears. But Missouri’s expression only deepened from sympathy to empathy as she looked between them.

“I know, Sam. I’ve seen them before myself.”

“What?”

“I saw them when he,” Missouri looked at Dean, her face filled with emotion, “when he first came to see me.”

Dean was actually so tense he seemed to vibrate. Sam fought the urge to grip his arm, to yank him back and out of there and far away from fucking Kansas. Dean still said nothing and Sam charged into the silence. “We’ve never been here before.”

“You haven’t, sweetie. But your Dad brought Dean here to me once.” She stepped toward Dean. “Do you remember?”

“I don’t—yeah. Yeah, I think so.” Dean’s voice was hoarse; his typical glibness had abandoned him.

“John brought you here during the summer when you were five years old. You were sad, honey, so sad. Not talking at all, you almost never smiled, John said. And your thoughts were just as jammed up and snarled as your words.”

Missouri took Dean’s hands in her own. Dean let her, looking shell-shocked. “I helped you untangle your thoughts, or I thought I did. I reached in and helped you straighten out, smooth down the strange edges. But now Sam here is sensing something wrong with the job I did.

“As well he might. Dean, honey—in helping you like I did, I made the biggest mistake of my life.”

**

_ 1984 _

The McDonalds was crowded. John usually ate early or late to avoid the rush, but today he’d needed to piss. He couldn’t stand to make an extra stop so he’d ordered lunch and hunkered down at a booth near the door. He had placed Sammy’s car seat on the table; Sammy surveyed his realm like a nine-month king on a throne. Dean sat across from John, not touching his Happy Meal. He was watching a woman near the counter arbitrating a fight between her two daughters. They were all blondes, and the woman had long, thick hair. John had to look away. 

He couldn’t shut out their voices, though. 

_ “Angela, it’s Jenny’s turn to pick the restaurant, so here we are.” _

_ “But mom, I told Jacob I’d meet him at Orange Julius! Jenny promised me she’d---“ _

John dropped his hand into his hands, massaging his temples. He needed to get more sleep. So did Dean; it seemed like the kid was always awake these days. 

_ “—it’s not fair! I told her that—“  _

John pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, letting the pressure distract from his headache.

Dean laughed. John’s head shot up. He blinked quickly, the black spots left by his hands fading from his vision. Dean was kneeling on the booth, playing peek-a-boo with Sammy. And _laughing_. John hadn’t heard his boy laugh since before—. Sammy was delighted, chortling and babbling at his animated playmate.

_ “—if you can’t deal with it, then—“ _

John stared, his chest painfully tight. Dean looked different. He was brighter somehow, his clothes more vivid, his hair shinier. Even the freckles on his face seemed more numerous, like they’d multiplied when John wasn’t looking. Love flooded through John, and he suddenly needed the Impala around them; he needed his boys back in the only home they had left. 

_ “—go and sit with Mikey, Angela. I am tired of your—“ _

“Come on, buddy. You can have the Happy Meal in the car.”

“Is it the one with the Hamburglar racecar prize?” Dean asked, his face lighting up. “I wanted that one last time.” John thought another smile might finish him off. It was like he’d forgotten how beautiful his boys were. Like he’d forgotten why he was bothering to keep moving, to keep running, and needed to be reminded.

“Yeah, little man, I think it is. Let’s go.” Hell, one day maybe he’d stop running and start fighting back. He could do it, for these boys of his.

John scooped Sammy up in one arm, seat and all. Dean’s hand was warm in his as they walked toward the door. A squad of teenagers came through at the same moment, and John knew he’d made the right call in leaving. It was about to get unbearably crowded and noisy in there.

_ “—Mom, where’s Mikey? Mikey, where are you, bunny? Mikey--?” _

Dean ran to the Impala when John reminded him where they’d parked, making motoring sounds like a racecar. John smiled and let the door swing shut behind him.

** _2006_

“That son of a _bitch,_ ” Sam said, when he could say anything at all. They had moved to the living room after Missouri’s bombshell, Sam and Dean side by side on the couch while Missouri faced them in an armchair. The tea service lay forgotten between them.

Sam was intimately familiar with his Dad’s many, many failings, but this was a whole new level of unforgiveable.  Sam had seen corpses shredded by a wendigo and his girlfriend bleeding and ablaze and he was having a hard time coming up with a description of how nasty this was. 

Those women were Dean’s family, and John had robbed them as he had been robbed. Worse, he had replaced Dean’s true inheritance of white-picket-fence _normal_ with hand-me-down terror, poverty and bloodlust. _None_ of the bullshit that comprised Winchester life should have been Dean’s, but instead he grew up with it smeared all over him. Sam was going to kill John. He was actually going to fucking murder—

“Sam Winchester! You have broken my very favorite tea set and you’re about to break your brother’s arm. Get a hold of yourself!”

Sam came back online to find the entire coffee table split in two right down the center, broken tea cups and kettle lost in the collapse like cars on a bridge after an earthquake. Sam felt the pulse of Dean’s brachial artery beneath the fingers of his right hand, and he unclenched Dean’s arm with a start. Sam imagined his fingers stamped in red near Dean’s shoulder beneath his shirt. It was going to bruise like a mother.

“Sorry. God, I’m sorry, Dean.”

Dean barely spared his arm a glance. His eyes were for Sam when he said, “It’s not like you could hurt me.” Sam caught his breath.  It was the first thing Dean had said since Missouri had told them the truth.

Dean added, “Big girl that you are.”

Sam’s huff was almost a laugh. “I don’t know. The coffee table begs to differ.” If Dean needed repartee, Sam would oblige.

“Yeah, yeah, your brain can karate chop, whatever. You know you threw scarier tantrums when you were three, right?” Dean couldn’t have said _we’re still brothers_ louder or more clearly and maybe it was Sam that needed this, really, because his eyes filled and he had to duck his head down to his hands.

For once, Dean took no potshot at Sam’s exposed flank, and in a moment Sam was able to look back up at Missouri.

“You must understand. John didn’t know what he did,” Missouri said.

“That’s impossible,” Judgment flattened Sam’s tone. Dean looked skeptical as well, but he held himself in check.

“No, Sam. Listen. An outright lie would have set off all kinds of alarm bells with me. But John truly believed he’d brought me a Dean that was still mixed up from the trauma of the fire, from losing his mom.” 

Sam couldn’t help it. “He _did_ lose his mom!” 

“Yes, and I will be judged for my part in that by a more exacting jury than you two someday. But John’s was a mistake born of madness, not malice. I could feel it like a stain in his mind, but I thought it was pure grief. And children’s memories are soft, still forming. I could read Dean’s sadness, but the specifics were tangled up with what John had told Dean about himself.

"And I…I was afraid to dig deep enough to figure out the truth.” Missouri’s face shone with regret. “I was younger then.”

Dean spoke into the quiet that followed, his voice soft. “What happened to the real me?”

“Dean—“ Sam started, but Dean’s eyes were locked with Missouri’s.

“Baby, you _are_ the real you. Nobody can steal that away without your permission. You have to know that.”

Sam saw Missouri shift in her chair, and a prickle up his neck told him she was choosing her words carefully. “I believe he died in the fire that took your mom.” 

Dean pursed his lips, nodded. His shoulders slumped. 

“If you want, we can look for him,” Sam said. If Dean wanted to search, he’d do what he could to help.

“Nah, I mean, unless you want to.” Dean wouldn’t look him in the eyes.

Oh, _oh_. “I really don’t.” Sam didn’t want any other Dean. Dean raised his eyes to Sam’s, and Sam steeled himself. This wasn’t about him, it was about Dean.

“Do you…want to look?” Sam couldn’t bring himself to say _for your real family, for an escape hatch_. It’s not like Sam himself wouldn’t want to, if the positions were switched. Sam’s sure he would.

“Nah,” Dean said and thank _god_ Dean was Dean, because Sam had a feeling that the world might lose a lot more than a few teacups if Sam had to go solo. With effort, Sam contained his gratitude to a small smile and a hand on Dean’s knee.

“Well, now that that’s settled, y’all are going to help me clean up this mess.”

** 

Missouri watched Sam and Dean as they walked down the front steps back toward their car. She could hear their conversation as if they were still in the room. She didn’t spy often, but some people were too important to lose track of. She’d made that mistake already with the Winchesters and she wasn’t eager to repeat it.

“Are we gonna talk about the other thing?” Sam asked.

“Oh, you mean how you went all Chuck Norris with your brain? Well I won’t be taking you to any china shops, raging bull.”

Sam slugged Dean in the shoulder he’d bruised earlier. 

“Ow!” 

“I’m being serious, man.”

Dean looked aggrieved. “Hey, I’m hurting, here!”

“You said it was fine!”

“Guess you’ve rubbed off on me, princess.”

Missouri had heard enough for the moment. Dean had more choices now, although Missouri figured him for a frog who thought the lid was still on the jar. John and Sam were under his skin for better or for worse. She couldn’t say what they’d have to face, but the three of them would face it together. 

She let Sam and his brother have their peace as they drove off.

**

“You can show yourself now, Dean. It’s OK.” It hadn’t been OK for very long time.

A four year old Dean rippled into view, his ghostly translucence emphasizing the sadness of his features. His little pajamas had trains on them, and he smelled like smoke. 

“I can’t stay here with you. I have to go with Sammy.” He would stay with her, like it or not, as long as the ritual circle she’d laid down that morning held true.

“I know, honey. But it isn’t right to bind yourself to another person like you’ve done, to make them want what you want.” Dean couldn’t understand that, but Missouri wanted to hear its truth aloud. She needed strength; if talk didn’t work, this was going to get messy quick. 

“I have to go with Sammy! I want Sammy!”

“Baby, your momma is waiting for you. She misses you.” Missouri spoke with the love of a mother in her voice—she had two of her own, grown and gone on with their lives, but, oh, she remembered.  

ldquo;But who will take care of Sammy?” Missouri read the name from his mind, or what passed for one in a ghost. The little boy that Dean had become, that had become Dean.

“Michael will do it. You’ve done a good job teaching him, my sweetheart.”

“Michael. I like Michael.”

“So will you go to your mommy? She is waiting.” Missouri reached into her pocket, felt the amulet she had constructed earlier. A few words over it and Dean would scatter into dust, his soul lost forever. If it came to that.

“I can’t find her. She went away.”

“You just have to close your eyes and want to be with her, little one. That’s all.” Salvation had to be his choice.

“Close my eyes--like going to sleep?” 

“Yes, just like that. Try to go to sleep.”

“OK. I’m tired.”

“I know, love.” He was so little. Had been so little for so long. And never once had he dropped his burden: Sam was healthy and whole beyond all reason. 

Dean closed his eyes.

******

**Author's Note:**

> This is a remix of the wonderful White Noise (http://archiveofourown.org/works/173230) by nwhepcat  
> Written for kamikazeremix 2012, originally posted here: http://kamikazeremix.livejournal.com/56359.html


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